Eavesdroppers
by chemiglee
Summary: Tina learns that eavesdroppers can sometimes hear worrying things. 5.07 reaction ficlet.


Blaine couldn't be anywhere but in the auditorium. Tina knew him, knew where'd he be, so she volunteered to go track him down, reassure him about his fears and give him some of what he needed so badly: control.

So, yeah, he'd been way way _way_ harder to be around lately and no, she didn't regret calling him Blaine Jong-Il because it was _true_, and so oddly reminiscent of Rachel, around this time last year, when she'd snip at Tina about the exact number and shade and degree of sparkle for the sequins in the hair barrettes for her Nationals costume, and Tina had wanted to snip and sass her right back - and didn't. So, this time around, she figured that when Blaine got like that again, he ought to know exactly just when he was creeping over the thin, bright line between benevolent care and total unilateral dictatorship. But it didn't mean she didn't care about him, and there was a difference between offering stark honesty (for his own good) and comfort. Yes, comfort. She'd be kind, because Blaine needed kindness right now - he hadn't always had friends who really got him.

And there he was, on the stage, but from her vantage point, she decided she didn't want to startle him. She'd let him work out whatever needed to be worked out. She framed her face into smoother lines and thought about her friend. He was talking to someone. She'd wait a bit, and then she'd hug him, give him a listening ear; senior year was so stressful (and Tina suppressed a momentary flash of panic: this wasn't about her, it wasn't.) She tilted her head. She had to smile. She couldn't resist watching him, looking so cute and talking to his puppet like that in a high puppety voice, but as she crept closer, weaving around in the darkness that lay beyond and to the left of the hot stage lights burning down, a shiver rippled up and down her spine and goosebumps prickled her skin.

The puppet had a dress on? A black and white checkered dress. Half of Tina promptly shut down as her heart sank.

"I feel like Mad Max in The Beaver," said Blaine, far too brightly. Tina made a mental note to stop the Saturday night movie marathons; obviously they weren't helping him relax as much as she'd thought. Blaine turned not-Tina's head to look at him and crinkled his brows to reply, fake-puzzled. "Wait, what leather?"

"More like Mel Gibson in Mad Max, with your abs, and your... leather," crooned not-Tina, as her felty paw rubbed felty circles on Blaine's chest. The other half of Tina, the part that hadn't already died from embarrassment (because she'd thought she'd forgotten and... no, no, she hadn't), recoiled from the buried memory of it. "The leather I was imagining you in, when I was rubbing vapor-cream over your smooth... hairless... chest?"

It'd all be less confusing if Blaine didn't have that little grin on his face, but the fact that it was both adorable _and_ worrying made her worry more. "Tina, I'm _engaged," _Blaine laughed, with that laugh that told her he'd loved her attention,and maybe that crushing, lovesick Tina from months and months ago would have squeed over this speech instead of cringed. And worried. Yes, worried.

She burst out. Tina decided, in that split second, to pretend like she'd just walked in instead of standing frozen in place during... that. "Hey! What's going on?" She tried not to sound absolutely horrified, and a little, uh, weirded out? But _that_, the knowledge he'd thought of her like that, had rushed in as soon as Blaine shuddered reflexively, curled up with not-Tina impaled all the way up his right forearm. "Nothing! I'm trying to clear some stuff out, trying to figure stuff out - "

And she let Blaine hurriedly scramble for a cover story, let him ramble, and all the while, in her head, she resolved to sit down with him later on and talk. Let him have his head, let him vent, and really talk, because it was clear from what just went on that Blaine needed someone to listen - about NYADA, about Kurt, about the towering stress of being apart and engaged and the future, and his abiding love of being loved, and maybe - scratch that, Tina, you have to do it, now - that thing with two heads that lay between them, too.


End file.
